May 2017

BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2017

Today’s busy agenda https://www.benton.org/calendar/2017-05-31

COMMUNICATIONS AND DEMOCRACY
   ‘Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment,’ Oregon mayor says. He’s wrong.
   ACLU Of Oregon: Mayor’s Attempt To Stop Pro-Trump, Anti-Sharia Rallies Is ‘Unconstitutional’ [links to Huffington Post]
   Sean Spicer returns with a press briefing for the ages [links to Washington Post]
   Michael Dubke Resigns as White House Communications Director
   Why Trump’s Decision Not to Hold an Overseas Press Conference Is Bad for Democracy [links to AdWeek]
   President Trump told Egypt’s Sissi he wouldn’t ‘lecture’ him. So Sissi cracked down on civil society. [links to Washington Post]

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
   Fight for the Future Cites More 'Fake' FCC Comments

OWNERSHIP
   Court Asked to Stay FCC’s Ownership Action
   NAB Asks to Intervene for FCC in UHF Fight [links to Broadcasting&Cable]
   Trump antitrust enforcer vows to scrutinize mergers
   Chicago’s ‘one owner, two newspapers’ dilemma [links to Columbia Journalism Review]
   Why Trump Won’t Break Up Silicon Valley Monopolies When the European Union Will [links to Wrap, The]

JOURNALISM
   How New York journalists overcame barriers to prison access and opened the world’s eyes to the horrors of Rikers [links to Media Matters for America]
   How To Read The News [links to Fast Company]
   Fox News: New York Times boycotted Obama surveillance story. Fox News: Oops, maybe not. [links to Washington Post]

PRIVACY
   How Congress dismantled federal Internet privacy rules
   The BROWSER Act: A Worthy Goal, But There's an Easier Fix to the Net Neutrality Privacy Mess - op-ed [links to Benton summary]
   How an “Opt-In” Privacy Regime Would Undermine the Internet Ecosystem - ITIF editorial [links to Benton summary]

HEALTH
   Filing Urges Changes to USF Funded FCC Rural Healthcare-Broadband Programs

WIRELESS/SPECTRUM
   Transition Plans and Transition Data for the 1695 – 1710 MHz Band [links to National Telecommunications and Information Administration]
   Transition Plans and Transition Data for the 1755 – 1780 MHz Band [links to National Telecommunications and Information Administration]

KIDS AND MEDIA
   FTC settlement with Amazon yields $70 million for consumers, advice for business [links to Federal Trade Commission]
   Refunds Now Available from Amazon for Unauthorized In-App Purchases [links to Federal Trade Commission]

BROADCASTING/CABLE
   FCC Settles With Jacksonville TV Station For False Broadcast Of Emergency Alert System Tones [links to Federal Communications Commission]
   Google Fiber Video Rates Just Got Bumped by 33 Percent [links to telecompetitor]

PATENT
   Supreme Court Curbs Patent-Holder Power to Block Resale, Allows Resale of Used Printer Cartridges [links to Bloomberg]
   Supreme Court Protects Consumer Rights in Impression Products v. Lexmark International [links to Public Knowledge]

RESEARCH
   People consumed more media than ever last year — but growth is slowing [links to Vox]

POLICYMAKERS
   Vital Stats: Congress has a staffing problem, too [links to Brookings]
   Roslyn Layton: What the media missed at the FCC in the president’s first hundred days [links to American Enterprise Institute]

STORIES FROM ABROAD
   European Union agrees to fund free WiFi for European towns with no internet coverage [links to Reuters]

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COMMUNICATIONS AND DEMOCRACY

HATE SPEECH
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kristine Phillips]
As his city mourns two men who were killed after confronting a man screaming anti-Muslim slurs, Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) is calling on federal officials to block what he called “alt-right demonstrations” from happening in downtown Portland (OR). His concern is that the two rallies, both scheduled in June, will escalate an already volatile situation in Portland by peddling “a message of hatred and of bigotry.” Although the organizers of the rallies have a constitutional right to speak, “hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment,” said Mayor Wheeler. But history and precedent are not on Wheeler's side. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that hate speech, no matter how bigoted or offensive, is free speech.
benton.org/headlines/hate-speech-not-protected-first-amendment-oregon-mayor-says-hes-wrong | Washington Post
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DUBKE OUT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Peter Baker]
Michael Dubke, the White House communications director, announced that he was resigning, as President Donald Trump weighs a broader shake-up of his staff in the face of multiple investigations. Dubke, a veteran Republican strategist who served three months in the role, said that he offered his resignation on May 18 and agreed to stay on until President Trump completed his first overseas trip, which ended over the weekend. Other staff changes could come by the end of the week, White House officials said. The resignation came as President Trump and his team pushed back against reports that Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, explored the possibility of setting up a secret communications channel to Moscow during the transition between the election and inauguration. President Trump posted a link on Twitter to a “Fox & Friends” article reporting that the Russians, not Kushner, suggested the secret channel and that it was meant as a one-time vehicle to talk about the civil war in Syria. Trump’s tweet came shortly after his counselor, Kellyanne Conway, went on the same program to call the talk of collusion with Russia “just a rush to judgment” and to repeat the president’s support for his son-in-law.
benton.org/headlines/michael-dubke-resigns-white-house-communications-director | New York Times
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CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

MORE FAKE COMMENTS
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Fight for the Future sees dead people. At least it says a few have somehow filed anti-Title II comments to the Federal Communications Commission according to reports from the deceased's friends. The group has also found another dozen or so people—twice the original number—who say anti-Title II comments were filed in the FCC docket under their names that they did not submit. In addition, the group said it has been hearing from people saying that a comment was filed under the name and address of a deceased family member. The group claims that over 450,000 fake comments have been submitted and that the FCC "is still refusing to remove fake comments, even when victims call the FCC directly and demand that their name and personal information be removed from a public docket endorsing political messages they don’t agree with." Fight for the Future also said it had received three reports from friends of recently deceased individuals whose names were on comments, saying the comments would have had to be posted posthumously.
benton.org/headlines/fight-future-cites-more-fake-fcc-comments | Broadcasting&Cable
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OWNERSHIP

OWNERSHIP DECISION CHALLENGED IN COURT
[SOURCE: TVNewsCheck, AUTHOR: Harry Jessell]
Several advocacy groups have asked the United States Court of Appeals in Washington to stay the Federal Communications Commission’s April 20 decision to relax the national TV ownership cap by restoring the UHF discount in calculating station group coverage. The effect of the FCC action is to lift the allowable coverage from 39% of TV homes to 78% assuming that all groups in a market are served by UHF stations. The immediate effect of the stay would be to derail Sinclair's proposed $3.9 billion purchase of Tribune Media that would balloon Sinclair's coverage from just below 39% to 72%. The motion for emergency stay pending a full review of the FCC action was filed by the Institute for Public Representations at Georgetown University Law Center on behalf of Free Press, Office of Communication of the United Church of Christ, Prometheus Radio Project, Media Mobilizing Project, Media Alliance, National Hispanic Media Coalition, and Common Cause. The court has given the FCC until June 1 to respond to the motion.
benton.org/headlines/court-asked-stay-fccs-ownership-action | TVNewsCheck
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MAKAN DELRAHIM
[SOURCE: Axios, AUTHOR: Kim Hart]
Makan Delrahim, who's expected to be confirmed this week as head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division, believes some so-called vertical mergers (such as the proposed AT&T-Time Warner deal) could pose anticompetitive concerns. He also said he will "vigorously enforce antitrust laws with respect to online platforms." "Just because a transaction or particular types of transactions have been approved in the past does not mean that they could not raise competitive concerns in the future," he said in written responses to questions submitted by Senators after Delrahim's short confirmation hearing.
benton.org/headlines/trump-antitrust-enforcer-vows-scrutinize-mergers | Axios | The Hill
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PRIVACY

INTERNET PRIVACY RULES
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Kimberly Kindy]
Congressional Republicans knew their plan was potentially explosive. They wanted to kill landmark privacy regulations that would soon ban Internet providers, such as Comcast and AT&T, from storing and selling customers’ browsing histories without their express consent. So after weeks of closed-door debates on Capitol Hill over who would take up the issue first — the House or the Senate — Republican members settled on a secret strategy, according to Hill staff and lobbyists involved in the battle. While the nation was distracted by the House’s pending vote to repeal Obamacare, Senate Republicans would schedule a vote to wipe out the new privacy protections. On March 23, the measure passed on a straight party-line vote, 50 to 48. Five days later, a majority of House Republicans voted in favor of it, sending it to the White House, where President Trump signed the bill in early April without ceremony or public comment. “While everyone was focused on the latest headline crisis coming out of the White House, Congress was able to roll back privacy,” said former Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler, who worked for nearly two years to pass the rules. The process to eliminate them took only a matter of weeks. The blowback was immediate.
benton.org/headlines/how-congress-dismantled-federal-internet-privacy-rules | Washington Post
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HEALTH

RURAL HEALTHCARE PROGRAM
[SOURCE: telecompetitor, AUTHOR: Joan Engebretson]
TeleQuality filed comments urges changes to the Federal Communications Commission rural healthcare-broadband programs, arguing that the Universal Service Fund (USF) rural healthcare, telecom and e-rate schools and libraries programs would be more effective if they did not operate as isolated silos. TeleQuality Communications, an organization that provides network connectivity for healthcare providers funded, in part, through the USF rural healthcare program. The filing includes some compelling data points, along with some creative ideas for potential reforms to FCC rural healthcare-broadband programs – although some readers may find some of the ideas unrealistic. The most compelling data points in the TeleQuality filing:
The number of physicians serving rural areas is insufficient. The filing cites a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) report that found that a majority of rural counties have 1 practitioner serving 3,500 patients when 1 practitioner per 2,000 patients is recommended for adequate care – a finding that confirms similar data that Telecompetitor has reported previously. There is also a shortage of skilled IT personnel in rural areas, TeleQuality argues – another data point that is consistent with previous research on that topic.
The number of FCC rural healthcare funding requests from healthcare providers has not increased as dramatically as the amount of funding requested – a phenomenon the filing attributes to the significant bandwidth increases needed to run electronic health records systems. At the same time, the FCC program remains underutilized because some healthcare providers do not have the resources to handle program filing and administration.
benton.org/headlines/filing-urges-changes-usf-funded-fcc-rural-healthcare-broadband-programs | telecompetitor
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